Lawsuit attacks EU’s approval of biomass in RED II
March 11, 2019
By
Maria Church
March 11, 2018 - A lawsuit filed March 4 in the European General Court in Luxembourg takes issue with forest biomass provisions in the EU's 2018 Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), which the plaintiffs claim harm forests and increase greenhouse gas emissions.
The lawsuit is filed by plaintiffs from Estonia, France, Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, and the U.S. They are asking for the court to reverse provisions made in RED II that allow EU member states to include forest wood in their renewable energy targets and subsidies.
“The lawsuit we are filing today alleges the EU’s policy fails to comply with nearly every one of the principles for environmental policy that are laid out in the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU, including that policy should be based on science, address climate change, and embrace the principle that polluters pay,” Raul Cazan, with 2Celsius in Romania, one of the NGO plaintiffs, said in news release.
According to the news release, group aims to “slow the rapid growth of U.S.-based companies like Enviva”, a major wood pellet exporter to Europe.
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